Wednesday, May 4, 2011

look, i'm being topical!

so, lots of stuff going on lately. big news stories and such. even for someone who generally only gets their limited news knowledge from yahoo headlines or jon stewart, even i couldn't be so oblivious as to not know what was obsessing the media. it was an event filled couple of weeks.

for weeks i couldn't watch tv without coming across some will & kate show on at least 2 channels at all times. their relationship, their engagement, their style, their families, the guest list, the plethora of royal wedding tchotchkes, etc etc etc. i didn't quite get the infatuation that some people had, whether it be in their hoards of tacky souvenirs or determination to travel halfway around the world to be in London on the wedding day. it seemed to me that the whole thing was getting much more attention that it deserved. really, i thought to myself, what's the big deal? who cares? then i heard that apparently two billion people cared. WHAT? two billion people are going to watch this wedding?? wow, that's a whole lotta people. that's almost a third of the whole world! and that was it, i got caught up in it and became royal wedding viewer 2,000,000,001. i didn't have enough enthusiasm to get up at 4am or anything, but that's what PVRs are for. and it was cool. i liked the ceremony and tradition of it all. but mostly i liked being a part of something with 2 billion other people.

almost eclipsed by the wedding was our federal election. in general i don't much care for politics. i don't keep up on all the nitty gritty or the who's who of what riding blah blah. i have an overall idea of what the parties stand for, the primary issues on the table, and that's about it. it may be basic, but i know who i like and who i side with. and i always vote. it makes me sad that voter turnout is only about 60%. i know that it often seems futile as one little ballot in a sea of millions, but we should not take our right to vote for granted. when the votes are all counted, i might not like the results. but what bothers me more are the people who complain about the government only to sit on their ass on election day.

and most recently, bin laden is dead. well that's good i guess. one less bad guy in the world. i'm not sure i have any more to say on this one. 9/11 still happened. all those people are still dead. the repercussions of that attack aren't going to dissolve just because he's dead now. i've never celebrated anyone's death before, and i'm not going to start. he's dead, that's that.

so there we have it, my thoughts on some of the world's happenings, instead of my usual self-centred babbling. hey, i said it was topical, not insightful.